At the Point of a. 38

3

For the first long leg of the chase, Shayne had kept himself tightly keyed up, thinking ahead to the next corner, the next shift. Now he was beginning to lose his concentration. He overshot a turn and had to back up. Backing was his most difficult maneuver; he had to work from the mirrors. By the time he completed the turn, the Olds was out of sight.

By his earlier calculations, his gas tank was now totally dry. He swerved off the road and came to a stop by the premium pump in an all-night gas station. While the attendant filled his tank Shayne weighed possible moves. If the Oldsmobile’s driver thought he had finally shaken Shayne, he would head west, to pick up the Palmetto Expressway on the other side of the Opa-Locka airport. There he could turn either north or south.

Shayne juggled distances and times. The helicopter, casting back and forth overhead, might be able to pick up the Olds even if Shayne, on the ground, was no longer in contact.

Leaving the gas station, he drove north on 27th Avenue to Golden Glades Drive, making the turn just as Dietrich, through the mobile operator, reported himself in the air. The operator relayed Shayne’s instructions, and Shayne turned south.

He watched the traffic carefully, looking for the Olds with its telltale splotch. Flying west from the heliport, Dietrich would strike into the expressway near Miami International Airport. That would give them their bracket, with Shayne on one side, Dietrich on the other.

He relaxed against the belt, holding the Buick at an easy sixty, and collected his energies for the next spurt. His operator was having trouble maintaining contact with the helicopter. The signal cut in and out. Dietrich began a long slant to the south, keeping away from the flight lanes into the airport.

“There he is!” he called suddenly. “Absolutely. Mike, my God, he’s lit up like a birthday cake. Does he know what you did to him?”

“I hope not.”

“The poor guy. Travelling south. There’s no way he can get off for the next eight miles. I’ll haul back so he won’t hear me, and come in ahead of him.”

Shayne worked a quick equation. He increased his own speed to seventy, to close the gap. After a time, when he guessed that he was only a mile or so back, he came down to sixty-five.

It was sleepy driving. He maintained intermittent contact between his cast and the steering wheel, letting the painful little raps keep him awake.

The Olds passed the next exit, then the one after that. This interval was nearly ten miles. Dietrich set the helicopter down in a field and turned off his engine until he saw the Olds go by.

So they continued south, passing the airstrip where Shayne had piled up the Cessna earlier that evening, and on into Perrine. Whenever Shayne caught a glimpse of the luminescent roof, he dropped back at once. In the helicopter, Dietrich paralleled the highway, keeping out of sight and earshot, coming in for a quick fix only when the Olds had a choice between leaving the expressway and continuing on.

They were getting closer to the big Homestead Airbase. Here aircraft noises were part of the environment, and at Shayne’s suggestion, Dietrich moved in. At last the Olds left the highway, with Dietrich continuing to dog him, through Florida City and into the narrow road to Homestead Beach.

“He’s pulling off,” Dietrich reported. “Meeting somebody.”

“O.K.,” Shayne said. “I’d better monitor this. Pull back and I’ll pass him.”

“In a gas station, Mike. Right-hand side, about a quarter of a mile down.”

The helicopter clacked away, circling back toward Florida City.

Shayne continued along the road until he saw the announcement board: “Gas 500 Feet.” He switched off his dashboard lights and came down hard on the gas. The station was boarded up, without pumps. Two cars on the weed-grown service apron were lined up in tandem. The Olds had reversed, to point back the way it had come.

Shayne passed in high gear, accelerating. The second car was a compact wagon, its front door open. Both sets of headlights were burning, and the luminous paint on the Oldsmobile, so conspicuous in the dark, now seemed merely a slightly lighter patch on the mottled roof.

At the next cross-roads, Shayne pulled off into another gas station. This one had pumps, but they were locked for the night. He parked pointing out, and picked up the phone.

“I think it’s time to split up,” he told Dietrich. “You stay with the Olds. He may be heading back north. Let’s play percentages on this. Probably he’ll stay on the expressway as far as South Miami. Go on up and wait for him.”

“Right, Mike. Working for you is always interesting.” After a moment: “The Olds, pulling out. Yeah-coming this way. The other car’s moving toward you.”

“Keep reporting in.”

Shayne tightened up gradually, flicking the ignition on and off. When headlights appeared, he started his engine. The station wagon, a Volvo, slowed for the intersection, and continued across. This road went nowhere except to Homestead Beach, a jerry-built, high-rent community occupied mainly by married non-coms from the air-base.

Ordinarily Shayne might have moved more discreetly, but he had used up most of his resources, and all of his patience. Somebody had killed a woman in downtown Miami, and had then travelled thirty miles to a rendezvous with somebody else. It was time to find out what was going on.

He pulled out, turning on his headlights after committing himself to the turn toward Homestead Beach. The station wagon was poking along, in no hurry. Shayne, on the contrary, was anxious to wind this up quickly, so he could resume the pursuit of the small bearded man in the Olds. He came up fast, blinking his headlights and mashing the horn. The Volvo eased over. Shayne swung wide, but as soon as he came abreast he closed in to the right and began to herd the other car off the road.

He started the move gradually. Then he twitched the wheel hard, heard a clash of metal and went back to the gas. After a quick spurt to open a gap, he activated the grenade he had considered using on the Oldsmobile, and rolled it out the window.

It exploded in the road, and Shayne hit the brake.

He was straddling the center line. The other driver, coming out of the impact area, plunged into a mango grove.

Shayne brought the Buick to a stop and backed up. Before stopping again, he turned his wheels to the right and aimed his lights at the wreck. The station wagon had struck at right angles. One rear wheel was off the ground, revolving. Dust rose.

Shayne picked the pistol off the seat and stepped out. Suddenly the Volvo’s door came open and the driver emerged. His heavy face was the color of cooked liver. He had a haircut out of the old Army, close to the bone. He was strongly built through the shoulders, but his stomach hung out over his belt, which cut into him cruelly. Shayne wanted to get through the night without further trouble, and brought up his gun. The other man didn’t seem to know he was there. He started walking away, but tripped on his own foot, and went headlong.

He raised his head slowly, shook it from side to side, as though to find out if anything rattled. He worked himself erect, spun around and came running toward Shayne, swinging his arms and moving in a side-to-side waddle, as though he had never tried anything faster than a walk, and he wasn’t sure how people did it. His eyes were pale blue, opaque, with a peculiar surface flatness. As yet nothing was registering on the brain behind them.

Shayne swung the gun in a short arc. If the man saw it coming, he didn’t react. He went facedown in the dirt.

Wedging the. 357 inside his sling, Shayne pulled the unconscious man over on his back. Something bulged inside the shirt. Shayne opened the top three buttons and took out a long sealed envelope. There was no doubt about what was inside. It had the unmistakable feel of money.

Shayne slit the envelope. There were thirty or forty bills, all seeming to be hundreds. He slipped the envelope inside his own shirt.

The man was wearing a metal plate around his neck. Shayne tipped it into the light, and learned that he was dealing with one Marian (NMI) Tibbett, USAF, Blood Type O, serial number 456-9994-07. His wallet, which Shayne checked next, yielded little information except that he was a master sergeant with twenty-two years service. Twenty-two years earlier, his home had been Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Leaving Tibbett in the dirt, Shayne went to the Volvo, where he found two things that interested him. One was a pint of good bourbon. Tibbett had been working at this and there was little left. Shayne finished it in two pulls, waited until he felt the warm surge, and continued his search of the car.

The rear seat had been folded forward to increase the cargo space. There was nothing there now except a few empty beer bottles and some torn green wrapping paper, heavy gauge, with a hard, shiny surface and a slippery feel. Shayne examined the paper closely. It was streaked with grease. He picked up some of this on one finger and smelled it. It was cosmolene, in which guns are packed when they leave the factory or arsenal.

Tibbett was breathing harshly, with a catch at the end of each breath, as though that one might be his last. Shayne broke a handful of ice out of the refrigerating unit in his back seat and applied it to the unconscious sergeant’s temples until his eyes opened and he said feebly, “What are we trying to do?”

“You had an accident, sergeant. Are you drunk, or did you fall asleep?”

“Fall asleep?”

“That’s the way it usually goes. Do you remember any dreams, like a hand grenade going off?”

The sergeant raised his head just enough so he could look at his smashed car. Comprehension returned slowly to his eyes. He clapped his hand to his chest and found that the envelope was gone.

“What’s the matter, sergeant?” Shayne said. “Have you been hijacked or something?”

“You bastard-”

He shifted weight, but before he could start his roll, Shayne kicked him in the neck.

He fell back hard. Shayne slid the butt of his pistol into view.

“Tonight I don’t want to wrestle anybody. I’d probably lose. If you try anything physical I’ll have to shoot you.”

The sergeant looked toward the wrecked Volvo and croaked, “There’s a jug in the front seat.”

“I found it, but I’ve already killed it. I also saw the paper the guns came in.”

The injured man was already feeling miserable, but now he began to feel worse. The flesh around his eyes contracted and the eyes themselves seemed to become smaller.

“Guns?” he said unhappily.

Shayne dropped into a squat to be on the sergeant’s level. “I took the liberty of checking your ID. The only reason to stay in the Air Force twenty-two years is to get that pension. And the one thing you’ve got to watch out for is a bad discharge.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

“What’s your job on the base?”

“Headquarters company, sergeant major.”

“The Air Force wouldn’t like it if they knew you were stealing guns. But I don’t care that much about it. There are hundreds of loose guns floating around. A few more won’t change anything. I’d like to know who you sold them to, and how he’s planning to use them. It could be something I might want to get in on.”

“I’ve got a headache,” Tibbett complained. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

“Nine or ten new Thompson machine pistols, 45 caliber. Of course I’m just going by the grease marks. It could be something harmless, except why would anybody pack something harmless in cosmolene?”

Tibbett’s breathing was still ragged, but otherwise he was on the mend. “You smashed up a good car and stole some money. And now you expect me to cooperate? Tell me why.” He started a movement, but looked up warily. “Are you going to let me sit up?”

Shayne motioned, and the sergeant came forward into a sitting position. “I mean, be realistic. You can’t prove anything with some smears of grease. They keep a pretty tight control of weapons on the base, especially automatic weapons. You’re right, that’s the one rip-off they don’t forgive. So with twenty-two years in the service, don’t you think I know enough to be mighty careful? I’m in charge of the paperwork, I’ve got it down to a science.”

“This can’t be your only angle. If they get the idea you’ve been stealing, you’ll be watched. That might cramp you a little.”

“It might. What do you want out of me, outside of my money?”

“The name of the guy in the Oldsmobile.”

“I’ll sell it to you for half the bread in the envelope. Fifteen hundred.”

“No, Marian. I like money as much as the next man.”

The sergeant’s lips worked in and out as he considered. “All you want is that one name and you’ll forget mine, is that it?”

“I may not forget it, but I won’t do anything about it.”

“Let alone could they prove anything,” Tibbett said grudgingly, “I honestly don’t want those intelligence jerks blowing down the back of my neck. Not that my few little swindles amount to anything, because they don’t. I’m not one of those big swingers. The opportunities down here in this off-corner of the world aren’t too extensive, believe it or not, especially now that the base is more or less closed down, with the budget cuts-”

His mind was working again, a little too soon for Shayne’s purpose. He broke off.

“You wouldn’t be Mike Shayne, would you, by any possible chance?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s the idea that suddenly hit me. I was listening to the car radio while I was waiting, you know? One of those creep shows. A lot of goddamn chatter. His pal Mike Shayne suffered a broken arm, so on and so forth and this and that. A body in the back of a car. Pretty heavy stuff. I mean-murder. I don’t know a thing. I make a point of not asking. So why don’t you just fuck off, Shayne? I put away nearly a full pint of bourbon whiskey. It’s all been a blur, one big blur in living color.”

“I’ve got a helicopter trailing the Olds. If this thing falls apart, you might be needing a friend.”

“I’ll worry about that when the time comes. I’m taking the Fifth. Why incriminate myself before I have to?”

A car stopped. The two young men in the front seat were wearing civilian clothes, but there were various indications that they were not civilians.

“Sergeant?” one of them called. “What the hell happened to you?”

Tibbett stood up, gauging the situation. He wanted his money back. Shayne eased the gun far enough out of the sling so he could touch the trigger. The sergeant studied him for a moment.

“Talk about petty crime.”

“Don’t desert,” Shayne told him. “I want to know where I can find you.”

“Hey, sarge,” the young man said from the car. “Are you O. K.?”

The sergeant turned. “Snapped the steering linkage or something. Ran the mother right off the road.”

Shayne returned to his Buick and belted himself in, then backed and filled until he was headed back toward the airbase. As he passed the group around the smashed Volvo, Sergeant Tibbett raised one finger.

Back on the expressway, northbound, Shayne built up his speed to over ninety, then brought in his operator.

“I’ve been trying to get you,” she said. “We’ve lost contact with the helicopter.”

“Where did he call in from last?”

“South of Hialeah. He said the Oldsmobile was still on the expressway, travelling north.”

Shayne acknowledged the message, and told her to keep trying.

For the next twenty minutes, he maintained the same pace, and was approaching Miami when the phone clicked beside him.

“Here’s Larry Dietrich. But it’s a ground call.” Dietrich came on, with bad news. Bypassing Miami, the Oldsmobile had continued north to Fort Lauderdale, and left the expressway at the Boca Raton turn-off. At that point Dietrich began having difficulty getting fuel. He stalled out twice, and had to put down on a golf course. As for the Olds, it had been about to enter Boca Raton. But this was a heavily-built up section of the coast. He was sorry to say it could be anywhere.

“I’m really sorry as hell, Mike. Maybe I could have hung on for a couple more miles, but I was running very rough. That golf course looked too damn inviting down there.”

“No, it’s a relief,” Shayne said. “Now I can go home and get some sleep. Not a bad way to tail somebody-we’ll have to do it again sometime. I’ll send you a check.”

Rourke had gone off the air and the station was no longer taking calls. Shayne’s operator tried to locate Gentry, without success. Shayne finally talked to a homicide lieutenant and gave him a description of the Oldsmobile and its driver, and where they had last been seen.

Then he turned off the expressway and headed for home.